Democrat Wismer’s northeast base resonates in victory

Susan Wismer won a dominant victory in last week’s Democratic primary despite losing the state’s two biggest cities.

The secret to her success? She kept down opponent Joe Lowe’s margins in Pennington and Minnehaha counties — and won big in the northeastern part of the state.

In fact, while Lowe won 20 counties, he won all but one of them by fewer than 100 votes, and all with less than 60 percent of the vote. Wismer had 15 counties — largely in her home turf in northeastern South Dakota — where she topped 60 percent.

Even in Lowe’s home turf of Pennington County, he won only 53.6 percent — a 217-vote margin.

Wismer, by contrast, dominated near home. Her legislative district consists of Roberts, Day and Marshall counties, and part of Brown County. In those four counties, she won 73 percent of the vote and a 1,992-vote margin.

In Brown County, home to Aberdeen, Wismer’s 665-vote margin was bigger than Lowe’s combined margin in all 20 counties he won.

Wismer also did well in Yankton County, where local legislative leader Bernie Hunhoff endorsed her.

She attributed her big win to her name recognition, support from teachers — and backing from voters eager to nominate a woman for governor.

“I think (women) were glad to see a woman step forward who was going to be a voice for equal rights and health, good choices, good health choices for women,” Wismer said. “I think that was encouraging for a lot of voters.”

Pamela Carriveau, a political science professor at Black Hills State University, said she hadn’t even thought about whether being a woman could be an advantage for Wismer in the lead-up to the primary. But afterward, she heard from multiple friends who said it was a factor.

“They seem to be very proud that she’s the first (female) major party candidate to be nominated from South Dakota to run for governor,” Carriveau said.

Wismer’s victory also might have shown the limits of retail campaigning. Lowe barnstormed the state for months and was generally seen as being the more active campaigner. Wismer, in contrast, put more of a focus on direct mail — something that might have made the difference in a low-turnout primary.

“We received mail from her, and we didn’t receive anything from Lowe,” Carriveau said.

In the U.S. Senate race, Mike Rounds did better in his five-way primary than Gov. Dennis Daugaard did in his own five-way gubernatorial primary in 2010.

The differences largely are geographical. Rounds did better than Daugaard in Brookings County, home to runner-up Scott Munsterman. But Rounds underperformed Daugaard in the south-central part of the state, which Stace Nelson represents in the Legislature.

In western counties, Rounds showed some weakness even as he won all but four counties there. He did worse than Daugaard in Lawrence, Meade and Butte counties — areas where local resident Larry Rhoden did well.

Experts said there’s some lingering West River discontent with Rounds relating to some decisions he made as governor.

But Carriveau said she was surprised Rounds did as well as he did West River, despite Rhoden’s presence in the race, and antipathy from some local tea party groups.